Water, Food, and Poverty

Book Description

This Element is an excerpt from Out of
Water: From Abundance to Scarcity and How to Solve the World's
Water Problems (9780131367265) by Colin Chartres and Samyuktha
Varma. Available in print and digital formats.

Understand the crucial linkages between
water, food, and poverty in the developing world.

About 70% of the poorest live in rural areas
where there is little other than agricultural employment. Farming
is one of the most precarious ways to earn a living, however. In
Asia, for instance, access to water — even where physical
scarcity is not a problem — is often still difficult due to
inefficient and inequitable institutions…